Places to Visit in Oregon

Named for the abundance of Tansy Ragwort that grows here, Tansy Point in Warrenton, Oregon, has a long history of human occupation. Before the arrival of Europeans, Chinook villages stretched along the numerous waterways that fed into the Columbia River, including the area at Tansy Point. It was here, on November 24, 1805, that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery paused to take a vote on their next campsite.

Columbia Gorge Discovery Center & Museum is located on a 54-acre point of land adjacent to the Columbia River and is the interpretive center for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. This area includes one of the oldest continuously occupied places in North America (over 11,000 years) and parts of the Lewis and Clark and Oregon Trails.

Did you know that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrived at the Pacific Ocean just before a whale washed up on the Oregon coast?

Several members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition spent the winter at a Clatsop-Nehalem Village near here, boiling ocean water to make salt for the return journey.

In January 1806, a whale washed ashore near NeCus’, a Nehalem village. Everyone in the area was talking about it. William Clark and some of the crew went down to see what the fuss was all about.

Clatsop leader Coboway was friendly and hospitable to the Lewis and Clark Expedition when they camped in Clatsop territory during the winter of 1805–1806.

Wasco-Wishram people played games and traded with visitors—whose leaders were named Meriwether Lewis and William Clark—when they camped here in 1805 and 1806.

Celilo Falls and the Narrows of the Columbia River have been the center of major trading networks for millennia. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stopped here to buy food and get help carrying their boats around the falls.

The Corps reached the Pacific Ocean over a year and a half after departing from Camp Wood, and settled in for the 1805-06 winter. They built Fort Clatsop, a reconstruction of which is found at its original site, located in Astoria, Oregon. The Corp's presence in this area strengthened the United States's claim to the Northwest. It also paved the way for the first American settlement--the Pacific Fur Company Post, established in 1811 by John Jacob Astor.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed the Willamette River without even noticing it. Only when they listened to Chinook and Kalapuya people did they realize what a large river it was.